Labor Day

I had one of those really fun days yesterday, filled with all sorts of things I love to do.

After a leisurely morning of coffee and internet surfing, I had my usual breakfast of scrambled eggs on a sesame bagel.

I then set up a mini photo studio in my bedroom to take some new selfie pictures for my work website. Since I've lost a pretty good amount of weight, I thought the photo of my on my home page needed some updating. Plus, the old photo was me with hair! I needed to reflect my new "penitentiary chic" buzzed hair look, LOL.

I ironed one of my white flat sheets and draped it over the canopy of my bed. The natural light coming thru the French doors if a perfect lighting set-up. I was happy with the results. You can visit my site here.

I then took a shower and headed to the beach. It was another glorious day. Only slightly cool. Too cold for a swim but with my hoodie the breeze and sun felt good. And it was surprisingly not that crowded for Labor Day.

I came back and had a nice dinner of the last of a big pot of soup I made a couple of days prior, a rich vegetable and cheese soup with black olives. 

I had a couple of big bowls as I watched one of my favorite TV shows on Hulu, "I Love Lucy". It was the episode where the Ricardos were to dedicate a Minute Man statue for the local community but Lucy crashes into it with her car.

Then I met up with a new friend, Tim, who was staying at Baron's Cove hotel in the village. I'd never seen the rooms since the place had been refurbished. 

Tim is a very friendly guy, he was visiting with his sister and parents. They're all from New Zealand.

After we had some cake by the ocean I drove home.

I ended the evening by watching a couple of episodes of another favorite show, "Looking", that I have on DVD. Then I went to bed, exhausted, but happy with the full (and fun) day.

Rock of ages

I stole this idea years ago from Martha Stewart Living magazine. Take a large nicely shaped rock, stencil your street address on it, and then place it somewhere in front of your house, preferable the curb, so people know what your address is if they can't see your house number front the street. Since I have high privet in front of my house this was a smart thing for me to do. Well, after many years the number faded. I've been needed to re-paint the number on the rock for a while, it was one of many things on my personal "honey-do" list. I finally got around to it last week. Fortunately I still had the origianal stencil tucked away in a drawer in the basement, so...voila! Revamped house rock! I did it in the new blue I used for the house trim so they would coordinate :)

Knotholes

I noticed the other week that there were two knotholes in the dogwood tree in front of the house. I stuck my finger in one and notices what seemed to be loose dirt in the cavity...or was it ground up tree from some insect that had been eating on it? Termites maybe? I decided to look on the internet for a solution. I came across a YouTube video where an arborist was saying that you could fill the hole with urethane expanding foam, the kind to fill cracks around your house. I bought a can to try it out. First, I cleaned out the hole as best I could. That's when I noticed some little white worms in there. I scooped them all out. I think perhaps they were the culprits making the holes bigger. Then I squeezed in some of the foam from the aerosol can. It expands quite a lot and causes a large bulge. Here's how the holes looked a few minutes later.









Kinda kooky, huh? I let the foam cure and set like that overnight. Then the next day I took a handsaw and cut off the big blob evenly across the surface.





Then I took some old brown paint I had in the basement and painted over the top of the foam and blended the edges with the surrounding bark.



It's been a week and it seems to be holding up. I think it looks okay...and it's certainly better than having insects eat away at the trunk from the inside. I think it will help.

Shoo Goo

I love saving money. It comes in handy for those of us who are unemployed. So when I find a new way to pinch pennies, nothing makes me happier.
Not one but two pairs of my sneakers, my Converse lo-tops and my running Nikes, were falling apart. This was making me pretty angry because they both looked like they had lots of life in them. The soles on all four sneaker were getting detached from the tops. I couldn't wear the Converses when it rains because my socks would get wet! And the other day when I took my FitBit walk around the village my Nikes were practically flapping in the wind. Not good.
I went to the hardware store to see if I could find some sort of epoxy that would work on rubber. Lo and behold I found a product called "Shoe Goo", made exactly for this purpose. It's an extremely strong clear glue that adheres very strongly.



When I applied it liberally to the soles of the Nikes I thought it would be a good idea to clamp them shut with some carpenter clamps and duct tape to hold them together as the Shoe Goo dried.




That worked out well. There was a little bump inside the toe on each foot from where the clamp was holding. You can feel it a little bit when you walk. At first I thought it would be very annoying or give me a blister, but it's fine. I can live with it. It's better than spending another $50 or $60 on a new pair.
The Converses are perfect. You'd never know how bad they were. I highly recommend this product and will definitely use it again in the future...and it was only about 4 bucks! Can't beat that!

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